Divers search for 19 missing in ferry accident as storm nears

Manila: Philippine divers combed the sea yesterday for 19 people missing in a ferry accident as an approaching typhoon and rough waters threatened to jeopardise the operation, officials said.

Surigao Mayor Alfonso Casurra said a town mayor and a group of students were among those missing after their ferry sank in big waves on Saturday off Hinatuan island, about 710km southeast of Manila.

A passing boat and coast guard personnel rescued 66 people, and 14 bodies have been recovered.

Casurra, who was on board a coast guard ship in the area where the wooden-hulled Leonida II capsized, said divers were searching for the sunken ferry, believed to be lying about 250 feet under water, to check if any bodies were inside.

"This is a big, big area and the water is becoming rough because of an approaching typhoon," Casurra said. A tropical storm that has formed east of the Philippines may strengthen into a typhoon in the next 24 hours, forecasters said. Some 110 passengers, 300 sacks of cement, and 12 other sacks of rice caused the sinking of a commercial ferry that killed 15 people in southern Philippines on Saturday, said the Office of the Civil Defence (OCD). The manifest of the ill-fated M/V Leonida II which sank off Hinatuan Island, in Surigao del Norte on Saturday, included only 49 passengers and six crew members (a total of 55), but records showed that the ship, which has a capacity of 155 people, actually carried 110 people when it sailed last Saturday, said Glenn Rabonza, administrator of the Office of Civil Defense (OCD).

The additional heavy cargo of 312 sacks of cement and rice on the ship was discovered from another source on Sunday, said Rabonza. The real number of passengers onboard the ship was tallied after 66 passengers were rescued on Saturday, and 15 bodies were recovered on Sunday, Rabonza added.

- With additional inputs by Barbara Mae Dacanay, Bureau Chief